Radio Luxembourg
Peel's programmes for Radio Luxembourg, aired from late 1971 to the middle of the following year, were produced by Alan Bailey and recorded at the station's London offices and studios at Hertford Street, about three days prior to broadcast, then flown to Luxembourg by North East Airlines.Many thanks to Ken Garner for this information, from a message to him from Alan Bailey. There is a short extract clip, probably from the show of 1972-01-28, on Bailey's 208 It Was Great website (click on link and scroll down the DJ names on the playlist) and another one from 1972-04-08 on YouTube. Background The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 and was one of the earliest commercial radio stations broadcasting popular music to Britain. In the 1950s, when John Peel was growing up, its evening broadcasts on the medium wave band were the only alternative to the BBC for most UK listeners, and remained so until the rise of the offshore pirate stations of the mid-1960s.On Desert Island Discs, Peel discusses his early career in the United States and mentions, "I'd wanted from a very early stage to get into radio - I'd listened to Radio Luxembourg and American Forces Network in Europe." It pursued a programme policy of chart-based music, many shows being sponsored by record companies who promoted their latest pop singles, was home to the first generation of personality DJs (including future BBC broadcasters such as Pete Murray, Alan Dell, David Jacobs and Alan Freeman) and attracted a large audience throughout the period. In the 1960s, Jimmy Savile became the station's most popular DJ and was reluctant to leave and join the BBC's new pop service Radio One, remaining with Radio Luxembourg until 1968. In the late 1960s, Radio Luxembourg gained a new audience (claiming five million listeners in 1969https://www.americanradiohistory.com/UK/Melody-Maker/60s/69/Melody-Maker-1969-0208.pdf) by changing its format from short, record company sponsored shows to longer ones, hosted by a team of DJs who included future Radio One presenters Paul Burnett and Noel Edmonds. With LP sales rising sharply, Radio Luxembourg also began to focus on "progressive" or "underground" pop and rock, with some shows featuring album tracks rather than singles. The station's most notable DJ discovery in this field was a young David "Kid" Jensen. Then, on Friday nights from 1971-11-05 to 1972-07-28, its schedules featured a show presented by Peel.Many thanks to Mick C of the Peel Mailing List and Marmalade Skies site for the great majority of the information on this page, including the music press quotes. Stenhousemuir 2 : Cowdenbeath 2 In fact, Radio Luxembourg had apparently been interested in securing Peel's talents as early as 1968, and the DJ himself had shown interest in working for the station. The second "list"http://www.radiolondon.co.uk/rl/perfumedgardenlists/peellists.html issued by the Perfumed Garden listeners' group informed its members of an upcoming change at the station: This is a vitally important and urgent notice to all Perfumed Gardeners. Radio Luxembourg is planning to radically change its format and introduce new DJs. These will have marathon shows instead of the present short ones. This, of course, has earth-shattering implications in that all John Peel's supporters have got the chance to write to Geoffrey Everitt, c/o Radio Luxembourg, London, W1, demanding that John has a regular spot. If everyone is faithful to the Perfumed Garden and writes we may well see the return of the Garden to radio. John himself is most anxious that we should do this. The Grapevine column of the 1968-03-02 issue of Disc & Music Echo reported: And here's some news from your friendly station of the stars. Radio Luxembourg is planning to pull John Peel into their new-look programmes which start this weekend. With such top Radio 1 names as Tony Blackburn, Alan Freeman, David Symonds and Pete Brady already signed up, 208 have invited Peel, the personality everybody seems to want, to host his own show six nights a week, between 12:40--1:10 am, with the tentative title "The Other Side Of The Track". In fact this is to be only a pseudonym for "The Perfumed Garden" show which won him fame with Radio London. While nothing came of this offer, with Peel just starting his Night Ride show on top of his existing Top Gear duties at Radio One, the commercial station tried again with greater success just a few years later. Under the headline "John Peel Joins 208 On Friday Nights!", the 208 Times pullout of the NME's 1971-11-06 edition reported the arrival of the DJ's new show: J''ohn Peel, widely recognised as being the leading authority on the progressive music scene, starts a series of Luxy shows this Friday night, November 5, and each Friday at 6.30 p.m. John has been given complete freedom in choosing his own records and hopes from time to time to interview many of his famous friends.'' In his Disc & Music Echo column published the same day, Peel commented: If it's good music you're after--well all I can do is suggest that you try Radio Luxembourg early on Friday evenings when I'll be playing a wholesome disc or two on a programme called "Stenhousemuir 2 : Cowdenbeath 2". There is no reason at all why the programme should be thus named but I didn't want it to be called something "meaningful" and pompous so "Stenhousemuir 2 : Cowdenbeath 2" it is. Ultimately it is to be hoped that the affair will contain contributions from friends old and new, inside leg measurements of the stars and other diversions but, for the time being, we'll have to stick with good music. Peel's manager Clive Selwood later recalled the origins of the show and offered his own take on the name Peel gave it: At one point in John's career, when relations with the Corporation were at very low ebb and showing every indication of an early termination, I arranged a series of shows on Radio Luxembourg just to demonstrate to the Beeb his continuing popularity. I shall long remember the look on the face of Radio Lux top man when John, instead of caling his show something snazzy along the lines of JP Rock 'n' Roll Extraveganza, insisted on calling it Stenhousemuir 2, Cowdenbeath 2. Ah, that ceaseless quest for fame and popularity.Clive Selwood, ''All The Moves (But None Of The Licks) (2003, p. 104)'' In the event, the initial start time of the one-hour show didn't last long, and Peel was soon shunted to the 1.00 am spot, just before Kid Jensen's "Dimensions". With Peel also now presenting a new Friday Night Is Boogie Night show on Radio One, the era of him presenting programmes running on both R1 and Radio Luxembourg came to end when Stenhousemuir 2 : Cowdenbeath 2 went off the air after less than nine months. Alan Bailey remembers this relatively short period of his working with Peel (in Bailey’s long and distinguished radio careerafter leaving Luxembourg in 1975, Bailey had a senior position at Radio Trent in Nottingham, won awards for his productions, and also independently produced three Monty Python albums, including Live At Drury Lane) vividly, and with affection: John had tremendous musical knowledge and was very caring and considerate towards us. This was the time we were letting DJs go self-operational as opposed to us spinning the records in. It was sort of a home-built turntable unit we came up with, and certainly unlike what the offshore DJs were used to. Without criticism, John ploughed into mastering this new fangled toy and enjoyed his show very much. We spent endless hours talking about rare 45s.Alan Bailey, "208-It Was Great: Radio Luxembourg" (©2006, Alan Bailey, self-published, pp.80-81) He also points out that “John had a free hand in his record choice and in what he said, I remember he was very pleased about this.”e-mail communication with Ken Garner, December 2010. Bailey would appear on Home Truths with Peel as part of a feature about an old Nazi propaganda record.http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/20040816_nazi_78_rpm.shtml Listeners who heard the shows noticed this too. Decktician, who made the track listings featured below, says: The show was only 1 hour & didn’t have that many ad breaks, and only news at the top of the hour. There was LOADS more story-telling; clearly this was a considerably more uncensored Peel enjoying the absence of restraints he was used to at the BBC. I remember being quite shocked at open references to his previous dabbling in drugs, for example. Sometimes he'd talk away for 5-10 mins at a time.”e-mail communication with Ken Garner, December 2010. Availability Currently there is only one full show available from 03 June 1972 (Radio Luxembourg) online. Tracklistings In December 2010, a cache of historic tracklistings from Peel's show on Radio Luxembourg became available as part of the Decktician Logs project of the Peel Mailing List, covering what appears to be a continuous six-month period from January 1972. Please see the following pages: *Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 1 *Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 2 *Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 3 *Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 4 *Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 5 *Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 6 See Also *Pink Floyd: The band's 'Interstellar Overdrive' was used as the signature tune for Peel's Radio Luxembourg show. *Radio Times: (2000-02-12 issue) Peel writes about the station, including his former show. Links *Wikipedia *208 It Was Great: Website of Peel's Radio Luxembourg producer Alan Bailey. Footnotes Category:Peel shows Category:Radio Luxembourg Category:1971 Category:1972 Category:Featured Articles Category:Radio Stations